The Biden administration will establish performance standards for federal buildings aimed at shrinking their carbon footprint, the White House announced Monday.
Top administration officials, including national climate adviser Gina McCarthy, Council on Environmental Quality Chairwoman Brenda Mallory, and the leaders of the Energy Department, General Services Administration, and Environmental Protection Agency, announced the new push at a summit focused on building decarbonization.
BIDEN STARTING FROM ALMOST ZERO IN EFFORT TO TURN THE FEDERAL FLEET ELECTRIC
The administration is also setting new energy conservation standards under the ENERGY STAR program to support heat pump technology and fast chargers for electric cars. The new standards could save 255 billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions per year if all heat pumps, central air conditioners, and electric water heaters sold in the United States met them, according to a White House fact sheet.
In addition, the Energy Department said it will invest $30 million in workforce training to support the construction and retrofitting of more efficient, lower-emitting buildings, including the electrification of building heating and appliances.
The new efforts are part of the administration’s plans to meet President Joe Biden’s aggressive climate goals, which include cutting U.S. emissions at least in half in the next decade and reaching net-zero emissions economy-wide by 2050.
Nonetheless, the Biden administration isn’t saying yet what changes it will require from federal buildings to reduce their carbon emissions, and it doesn’t say how heavily it would rely on electrification.
Instead, the Council on Environmental Quality is convening an interagency effort, along with GSA, the Energy Department, and the EPA, to develop the standards, which the fact sheet says “will identify progressive performance milestones as well as the resources that agencies need to meet them.”
The White House didn’t specify when those standards will be completed.
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The Biden administration is also touting a report out Monday from the Coalition for Green Capital and Rewiring America that found the “clean energy accelerator” included in Biden’s infrastructure plan could support a program to electrify buildings that would reduce household greenhouse gas emissions by up to 40 million metric tons each year by 2030.
The report also says such an electrification program could offer nearly 12 million households savings on their energy bills of up to $750 per year.
